


Whisper a Dangerous Secret

by StrippingWizardsOnABartop



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-07 02:01:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12223470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrippingWizardsOnABartop/pseuds/StrippingWizardsOnABartop
Summary: Set post episode 43: Visitor. Carlos walks into the kitchen the morning after taking Khoshekh to the vet with Cecil and promptly has a panic attack. Cecil assumes that Carlos is afraid of him. Warning for description of a panic attack and past domestic violence and alcoholism.





	Whisper a Dangerous Secret

**Author's Note:**

> I have only listened through episode 53. Yes, I am behind. My Cecil head-cannons are purple eyes, tentacles, tattoos (including a gun with the words This Machine Kills Fascists written on it), and probably too many teeth. If anything differs too wildly from stated canon, just push it gently to the side of your mind and off a canyon into a never-ending abyss.

Since his arrival in Night Vale nearly two years prior, Carlos had faced down an almost innumerable plethora of sights that would have once sent him not running for the hills exactly, but at least inspired a self-preservation driven duck-and-cover routine. But buzzing shadow creatures on first-dates, projectile-launching citizens of a miniature-city, gelatinous gray lumps that grow hair and teeth contained by clocks and the thought of condos that still make him shudder- none of that had prepared him for the sight that met him at his breakfast table that morning. He drags a tan hand down his tired face as he struggles to settle on an appropriate greeting for the dark-haired man who sat at the table. 

The other man didn’t appear to have slept since their arrival home from the veterinary clinic late the previous night. His dark hair is pointing in every which direction in the fashion of his typical bed-head. It never fails to somehow make him look younger and more vulnerable. At some point, he’d taken off the purple business shirt which he’d been wearing when Carlos had met him at the veterinary clinic. Carlos’ stomach turns as he remembers the blood which had been splattered across it. Distantly he wonders if his boyfriend is cold wearing nothing but his culotte khakis with his bare feet pressing onto the dirty blue tile of their kitchen floor. The light of the rising sun is drifting in through the window over the sink, but isn’t yet providing much warmth in the cool desert morning.

Carlos shuts his eyes tightly for a moment and wills himself to stay in the moment- not to let memories overtake him. But he could swear that he can hear his own heart racing. Reflexively swallowing, he tries to catch his breath, but there seems to be a large rock sitting directly on the middle of his chest weighing him down and preventing air from reaching his lungs. He’s choking now – he must be. There’s no air coming in and his fingers have gone numb. He can’t feel his face. Has his mouth fallen asleep? 

The logical part of his brain quietly suggests that a responsible well-educated scientist would simply remove themselves from the room. Which might be a helpful suggestion, if Carlos was having any success with keeping himself upright. Instead, he goes with the second most logical option and presses his fist to his mouth biting down lightly to muffle the sound of panic that seemed to be threatening to rip from his chest as he presses his back against the closest kitchen wall.

~ ~ ~

Cecil had been so deep in thought as he sat with his old Blood Pact Scout polishing rags that he hadn’t noticed Carlos walking into the kitchen at first. His body was exhausted, but he couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t seem to unwind or relax. The horrible events of the previous evening kept replaying in his mind in a seemingly endless loop. The heartrendingly sad sound of Khoshekh’s whimpering was still boiling his blood. 

For hours, he had been too angry to stay still, but he had tried. He tried to lay still and ignore the skittering of the faceless old woman on his ceiling and fall asleep running his fingers through Carlos’ perfect hair like a normal night. Until finally he gave up and decided that some mindless repetition would be the most likely candidate to calming his mind and banishing the horrible memories.

But then sensing someone in the kitchen, he looked up to see beautiful Carlos in his flannel pajama bottoms crumple to the floor.

“Carlos?” he calls standing abruptly. He feels the wooden chair behind him slowly fall to the floor as he leaps to his feet. 

“Oh, Carlos,” the radio host soothes as he sits down by the shaking man. Remembering his Elementary psychological pathopysiology and first aid, he begins the standard steps for a sudden psychological breakdown subtype 3C. 

“You’re alright. It’s alright. Just breathe, Carlos. Breath with me, okay? In-out. In-out.” Cecil’s exaggerates his breathing as he watches his boyfriend’s soft lips. His hands itch to reach out and touch Carlos’ long shaking hands, his muscular legs, his wet face, but he pushes down the urge and focuses on helping to slow his ragged breathing instead.

“Okay, that’s good. I’m going to count to ten, Carlos, just keep breathing like that. One, two, three….” He encourages.

The trembling man’s breathing slows and the tremor in his tan hands seems to lessen.

Cecil remembers the steps he had memorized by rote once-upon-a-time at Night Vale Elementary, “1.) Stay with the person or persons. 2.) Remain calm. 3.) Help slow their breathing. 4.) Move to a quiet municipally approved place. 5.) If additional help is required, tap out “S-O-S” in morse code on a north-facing window to alert the sheriff’s secret police. Then tap out your opening bid for an ambulance ride to Night Vale General Hospital – remember ambulances are incorporeal on all federal holidays and any fifth Mondays of the month.

“Carlos, dear, can you stand up?” He asks holding out his tattooed hands and quietly getting to his feet. The sun has risen and rays of sunshine are drifting in past the tartan window curtains over the sink warming the linoleum. 

The dark-eyed gorgeous scientist doesn’t answer in his normally caramel dulcet tones, but he holds out his right hand to the radio host and Cecil helps him stand as slowly and gently as he can.

Cecil holds that precious, perfect hand in his as he leads the other man to their living room where he deposits him carefully on the floral couch. The scientist’s dark eyes are pointed studiously at the ground. He hasn’t lifted them to look at his boyfriend once since Cecil realized he had entered the kitchen.

Looking at the perfect man on sitting on their couch, Cecil feels a chill roll through him that has nothing to do with regularly municipally scheduled nightmares.

After a lifetime in “the most scientifically interesting community in the U.S.,” the man who is neither tall nor short considers himself something of an expert on bloodchilling terror and that is what he sees written all over the man he loves. The eyes that won’t stop staring at some indefinite point on the ground and slightly to the left, the way he hasn’t moved his left hand from a fist he appears to be biting, the now intermittent trembling- Carlos is terrified of something. And he won’t look at Cecil. Cecil, whom Carlos had awoken to find sitting in blood-stained khakis, drinking to forget at the kitchen table with long purple tentacles holding polishing oil, wax, rags, and tactical matte finish.

“Pequeño, they’re remarkable – just like the rest of you,” Carlos had whispered running a hand gently down a muscular tentacle on the left of Cecil’s side one lazy morning after the tattooed man had finally worked up the courage to show the scientist exactly what he was hiding under his tunics and business-casual kitten sweaters. “This combination of mammalian and cephalopod primary features is subjectively one of the most beautiful and unexplainable things I have ever encountered.”

Cecil’s heart raced just a little at hearing perfect Carlos describe any part of him as ‘beautiful.’ But he couldn’t quite silence or banish to forbidden caves the doubt that nagged at the corner of his mind. “You don’t think they make me look like a monster?” He whispered just as softly.

The curly-haired man’s endlessly deep eyes met Cecil’s purple ones in a level gaze. “No, pequeño. I think they’re neat.”

Cecil’s smile had nearly reached his ears.

“But what’s changed since then?” the humanoid man asked himself as he returned to the kitchen to fetch his boyfriend a tumbler of cactus juice from the lime-green cabinet.

“…I– I kicked it, and I kicked it again, and Jeremy helped me pin it down…”

“…and I wanted to beat it to death with a hammer, but I had no hammer…”

“I’m sure there is vengeance to be found! I’m sure I will find it! I’m sure. I just have to find the right recipient.”

He couldn’t stop himself from wincing when the rage-filled words filtered back into his mind. Carlos had said he didn’t think Cecil was a monster, before.

Before he had heard Cecil describe physically attacking a creature he had described as “adorable” and “cute surprise” and “pleading.”

Before he had heard Cecil admitting on community radio for all of Night Vale to hear that he wanted to beat a presumably living creature to death with a hammer. That the only thing which prevented him from doing so was that he didn’t have a hammer at his disposal. 

Before he had heard a purple-eyed tentacled freak proclaim himself on a mission of vengeance with complete disregard for what vague yet menacing government agencies or sheriff’s secret police or corporate executives might hear.

The radio host sat the star-shaped tumbler on the kitchen table and walked into the bedroom grabbing a black t-shirt with, “My Great Great Grandson went to the Lesser Moons and All I Got Was This Lousy T- Shirt” emblazoned on the front from the floor near the foot of the bed and pulling it on. He didn’t want to make the other man anymore uncomfortable than he had to be having started the morning with a panic attack in his own kitchen.

The tumbler of cactus juice in his hand, Cecil walks back into the living room and remains what he thinks is a respectful distance from the curly-haired scientist on the couch.

“I brought you some of the cactus juice you like,” He explains softly. “The one I picked up at the Whole Foods before it was shut down with spider incident.”

Carlos reaches for the glass, but simply holds it in his shaky hands.

“Carlos, I need you to know something. It’s very important that you listen and remember this because it is quite possibly one of the few things of which I am absolutely certain.” Cecil takes a deep breath and gathers up all of his conviction to put into his words.

Those lovely dark eyes finally meet his.

“Carlos, my dear Carlos, I would never hurt you,” He states pushing as much finality and surety into the words as he can fit with all of his internship and community radio experience.

“Cecil… . You… . I… . When… .” The other man attempts in a hoarse voice before wincing and closing his eyes again temporarily.

“Given the ever-changing nature of reality and time and space and all things past, present, and future, I am sure of very little in this life. But I know that, Carlos. Not even on threat of re-education or Icelandic water-torture or wheat or wheat by-products…” But before the brown-haired man can finish even a fraction of the list of things that could not compel him to hurt his partner, he is interrupted.

“Cecil… Have we always had all those guns?” The scientist asks abruptly.

“Or dinner alone with Steve Carl….I…. What?” The radio host asks confusedly as his brow furrows.

“All those guns…. Like, that is a LOT of guns, Cecil. That is more guns than I have seen in any action movie ever…. Even that weird Miracle on 34th Street reboot we watched last week… Have we always had all those guns in our apartment?” Carlos inquires voice seemingly awestruck.

“Well, yes. I normally keep them in the antique trunk in the guest room with my other mementos, but I have my stock shotgun from my first penmanship class, the Sig Sauer I received after I earned my first library card, the Glock 26 which is Boy Scout standard issue, the Beretta my third-cousin Janice gave me at my Bar Mitzvah, the Uzi Earl gave me at our graduation and the rest are gifts from community residents who appreciate the quality program at NVCR. But…. Carlos, what does our gun collection have to do with this?”

The scientist takes a shuddering breath. “It has everything to do with this, Cecil… I… came to breakfast this morning to find you with a gun-fetishist’s wet dream and…” His voice cracks with an almost painful sound at this point, “And your drinking-to-forget brandy….”

Cecil runs his tongue over his lips as he tries to process. “Carlos, what does my polishing our gun collection have to do with you being afraid of me?”

Now the black-haired man’s brow furrows. “Afraid of you? Cecil… I… I’m not afraid of you…”

“Carlos, you saw me holding and polishing our gun collection with my tentacles this morning and you had a panic attack on our kitchen floor. You were terrified of something.” When it looks like the scientist is going to object, he presses, “I just need you to know that no matter what I said yesterday, you don’t have to be afraid of me.”

“Cecil…I’m telling you. I could never be afraid of you. Come sit beside me, pequeño,” comes the soft reply.

So, he does- maintaining a respectful distance at the other end of the couch. 

“Cecil…. I wasn’t afraid of you. I was afraid of the guns.” Carlos states gently, but with confidence. 

As if that were a statement that made any sense.

“But…Guns don’t kill people… Blood loss and organ damage do,” the radio host quotes.

“Babe, I’m not arguing the nature of causality or your support of the local NRA right now. I’m…..I’m trying to explain that you weren’t what scared me at the breakfast table,” The shake has worked its way back into Carlos’ voice.

“I wasn’t?” Cecil asks as that old nagging doubt circles around the corner of his mind.

“No. Why would you assume that?”

Cecil shrugs. He doesn’t want to explain to his boyfriend all the reasons that a normal, well-adjusted, adult male might be afraid of him.

“Cecil, why would you assume I was afraid of you?” The scientist repeats.

Wrapping his arms around himself, he forces himself to answer.

“I’ve been told my tentacles make me look like a monster and I know you didn’t think so, but then you heard me on air last night threatening that thing,” the radio host spits with venom in his voice. “And I thought maybe you had changed your mind.”

“Pequeño, I meant it when I said I think your tentacles are beautiful just like the rest of you. And last night I heard yet again how fiercely loyal you are to those you love and how far you are willing to go when you feel that they have been hurt.” Here the dark-eyed man pauses to grab the other’s hand. “You ran a man out-of-town over a bad haircut within months of meeting me. We never would have made it to our first date if I thought your dedication to protecting those you care about was any sort of deal-breaker.”

Cecil is both relieved and still confused. “Carlos, perfectly wonderful, Carlos…. I’m glad to hear you say so, but I still don’t understand why you had a panic attack over a few ordinary guns… Unless it was a monthly feelings’ delivery?” He asks as he holds Carlos’ hands in his- gently stroking his long fingers.

Carlos’ face looks grim for a moment before he answers. “Cecil, did I ever tell you about my step-father?”

The tattooed man shakes his head.

“He….He used to drink. A lot. But not just drinking to forget, but just drinking. And he….” Carlos takes a fortifying breath here before pushing on. “He liked guns. He would get drunk sometimes and he would polish them. Usually anytime my mother was away from the house longer than he thought she should be. He would be drinking- he never seemed to stop. And sometimes two hours after she left, sometimes just fifteen minutes, he would pull out the guns and start polishing them…. He had me help polish them at our kitchen table where I ate cereal before school…where we had family dinners…”

Pausing for a moment, the scientist closes his eyes and picks at the skin by his thumbs nervously. “Because he was jealous. He was jealous and controlling, but he was also smart…he knew…he knew that he could threaten my mother…scare her away from any thought of leaving him without saying a word. Just the sight of that….” Carlos shudders. “Vile man polishing guns with her little boy.”

Cecil’s blood runs cold. “He…he wanted to threaten her…He was using you to send a message.”

Carlos’ lips twitch in a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Exactly. And the message was, ‘If you ever even think about leaving me, remember, I have a gun and you have something to lose.”

Cecil’s arms are wrapped around his boyfriend before he even registers that he has moved across the couch. “Oh Carlos…precious, perfect Carlos… I’m so sorry. I’m so very sorry.”

Carlos’ arms wrap back around the radio host in response. “I know, babe. It was just….just the smell of the polishing oil with the alcohol….and all those guns on the table… Cecil, he taught me the names of all those guns from magazines…It made me remember so much that I wanted to forget.”

“I’ll put them back in the trunk and only take them out in emergencies or municipally-mandated safety drills.” The tattooed man replies adamantly.

“You can have them out, babe….Just please don’t polish them at the breakfast table with an open bottle of brandy. That’s dangerous, anyway. I would’ve thought there would be a Boy Scout badge for that.”

“I never did get my Junior Firearms Common Sense Badge. I was too busy working on my Subversive Radio Host Badge with Earl.” Cecil admits sheepishly. “Is there anything else I can do to help, babe?”

“Yeah, there is. Take off that ridiculous shirt and hug me with your tentacles, too.”

End.

**Author's Note:**

> The weather for this fanfic is Palabras de Papel by Nelson Poblete. Pequeño is Spanish for “little one” which isn’t the most common term of endearment, but I think it’s sweet.


End file.
